Over a dozen millisecond pulsars are ablating low-mass companions in close binary systems. In the original `black widow', the eight-hour orbital period...

Stellar-mass black holes have all been discovered through X-ray emission, which arises from the accretion of gas from their binary companions (this gas is...

Barnard's star is a red dwarf, and has the largest proper motion (apparent motion across the sky) of all known stars. At a distance of 1.8 parsecs1, it is the...

Black holes undergoing accretion are thought to emit the bulk of their power in the X-ray band by releasing the gravitational potential energy of the infalling...

Massive present-day early-type (elliptical and lenticular) galaxies probably gained the bulk of their stellar mass and heavy elements through intense, dust...

Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets outside the Solar System1, most of which orbit stars that will eventually evolve into red giants and then into...

On 17 August 2017, the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors observed the gravitational-wave event GW170817—a strong signal from the merger of a binary neutron-star...

Type Ia supernovae arise from the thermonuclear explosion of white-dwarf stars that have cores of carbon and oxygen. The uniformity of their light curves makes...

Most ultraluminous X-ray sources have a typical set of properties not seen in Galactic stellar-mass black holes. They have luminosities of more than 3 × 1039...